If “Volkswagen” had built that plant in Burgas, today they would be firing the workers

September 24, 2024Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.

Author: Stefan MINCHEV

Do you remember how Volkswagen announced in 2019 that they planned to open a new plant in Eastern Europe? There was great commotion. Lobbying has begun. Bulgaria and Serbia first gathered for the car giant’s attention. The former military airport near the town of Burgas in Ravnets was considered a potential location in our country. How many hopes were awakened then…

Then Turkey came into the equation. And the result seemed predictable. Turkey is big, powerful and unencumbered by some of the burdensome regulations of the European Union.

However, suddenly in 2020, the epidemic / hysteria of Covid started and many similar projects around the world disappeared. And as of today, nothing is the same.

German edition: Sofia is the favorite of the new Volkswagen plant

A few days ago, Volkswagen announced that it was considering closing plants in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history. The reason is that the company cannot fight against the growing competition from Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. Don’t you have any doubt that Volkswagen, if they had built it here, would have shut down the plant in Bulgaria first, before reaching domestic capacity? So they would probably be laying off hundreds of native workers right now.

If you’re hoping China will set foot in Bulgaria with a big technological investment, forget it. Over the past 15 years, hundreds of their delegations have been welcomed in Burgas. The guests nodded, smiled, took their gift bags from the mayor … And nothing. During that time, China was investing in infrastructure and creating jobs not here, but in Serbia. BYD is preparing to build a large factory for electric cars in Hungary.

The amazing location of Volkswagen’s new 1 billion euro plant

On this issue, the Bulgarian rulers have no useful movement. Geopolitics at the moment is such that we are not as interesting to the Chinese as the two countries listed.

But we can do something else. To increase and deepen our ties with one of the main competitors in world trade – South Korea. In this regard, Burgas is ahead of all other Bulgarian cities. It is connected to Ulsan, home of the largest car manufacturing plant on the planet. It belongs to the Hyundai company, which ranks third in the world in terms of market share, together with its Kia division.

Read more from the author HERE

‘); document.write(”); }